School board works on soccer, portables

For the second time in three years, interest in a girl’s high school soccer team made its way to the Wahkiakum School District Board of Directors, this time in the form of a grandfather who asked that they might consider adding the sport.

Three years ago, several students came to the board with the same request but were ultimately turned down.

Local resident Tom Shoffner made a plea for a high school women’s soccer team for his granddaughter, who enjoys the sport and has shown some talent for it.

“Women’s soccer is one sport in this country that is close to parity,” Shoffner said, “the only team sport where women are close to getting the recognition that they deserve. That is why I would like to ask you to think about having a soccer team here in Wahkiakum County.”

Superintendent Bob Garrett shared that students had recently taken a survey so the district could ascertain their particular interests in sports. Stephanie Leitz, the principal at WHS and a former high school soccer player assured Shoffner that she and Rob Garrett, the Athletic Director were exploring the idea.

“I think it’s about the kids and what they want to do so we’ll continue to look at it,” she said, “but over time it doesn’t look like the interest is sustainable.”

Last week at a special meeting the board discussed purchasing new modular classrooms. On Tuesday they learned of an opportunity to purchase two two-year-old portables that are currently being used by a school in Federal Way. The portables could save the district as much as $50,000 and would come equipped with the sinks that staff wanted for science and art classrooms.

Unfortunately, the day Principal Theresa Libby planned to travel to Federal Way to look at the classrooms, the vendor shared that it would be two more weeks before he could be certain if they would be available or not.

The board approved a purchase order in order to reserve the two modular classrooms if they become available. In doing so, they put off an order for new modular classrooms which take some time and need to be ordered now in order to be ready near the start of the 2016-2017 school year. Thus they placed their hopes in the used classrooms becoming available.

The board voted to declare three portables at the grade school and one at the high school as surplus. At some point, the district plans to demolish the old portables, but they still need to determine whether there is asbestos present, a test that is expected to be done on Thursday.

The board approved an overnight field trip for 4-H robotics students to OMSI. They also agreed to pick up the transportation charges if the 4-H funds do not cover the cost.

Leitz reported that the school district had been awarded an OSPI grant to build a district greenhouse to be used by K-12. There will also be two water bottle filling stations at the schools. She shared that Kayli Hurley, the special education teacher, wanted to start a garden club at the high school.

“They are talking about plant sales and starting a pumpkin patch,” Leitz said. “I think it will be a neat district wide project.”

Libby shared that there will be a plant sale on May 5 in front of the elementary school to raise money for their school garden.

The Seattle Shakespeare Company is returning to Wahkiakum High School next week. This year they will be teaching and performing The Tempest. The troupe will have workshops for students during the day on Thursday, April 28 and perform an abbreviated version of the play on Friday, April 29 at 1:30 p.m. The performance is open to the public.

Garrett reported that a food service administrative review cost the school a bit of money in November.

“For two days in the month of October, staff used a corn chip that wasn’t 100 percent grain and we got docked,” he said. “I think we served 354 meals with those corn chips that weren’t the right kind of corn chips. We lost the money that we had claimed for those meals. I had to authorize like $898 to be returned to food services at OSPI.”

“I realized that that position requires a lot of technical knowledge about what is required and the littlest mistake can cost you money,” he continued. “It’s an important position. I didn’t quite realize that as much as I do now.”

Paul Johns submitted his resignation as the middle school football coach.

The board scheduled a special meeting to continue the discussion about school board goals and superintendent evaluations for May 17 at 5:30 p.m.

The next regular school board meeting is scheduled for May 24 at 5:30 p.m.